Since I keep hearing arguments about how you need to spend ages to improve in mapping and how some beatmaps are better than others, can someone tell me an objective answer as to what constitutes a good beatmap?

A map is "good" when it expresses the song through gameplay, i.e. cursor motions and rhythms.

So it like uses similar spacing, angle, and rhythm concepts for similar portions of the song, and stuff like that. So then like, the gameplay feels the way the song sounds.

And then ofc, people play it and enjoy playing it.

And that's about it imo

UndeadCapulet wrote:

A map is "good" when it expresses the song through gameplay, i.e. cursor motions and rhythms.

So it like uses similar spacing, angle, and rhythm concepts for similar portions of the song, and stuff like that. So then like, the gameplay feels the way the song sounds.

And then ofc, people play it and enjoy playing it.

And that's about it imo

Can you put it into terms that are less subjective and more objective?

Is a beatmap good when it follows a very strict ds like a old school map vs a jump heavy modern map? There are a bunch of old mappers who think the modern style is terrible, and of course vice versa.

Even among modern maps, there are various styles that are loved by certain audiences, while thought of as random gimmicks by many others.

pishifat has made an interesting video on the matter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4v1QVJozGs

Anyway I think there cannot be an exact definition of a good map, it's just way to subjective. It's like asking what makes a song good. Certain people consider certain genres "trash" and "noise" while others find it beautiful.
Of course you can say general stuff like a map should fit the song, for example in intensity, repetetiveness etc. Also some kind of structure or "idea" is a good basis.

1. Go to youtube
2. Search "Pishifat"
3. Watch his tutorials
4. Profit

>w<

Tshemmp wrote:

pishifat has made an interesting video on the matter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4v1QVJozGs

Anyway I think there cannot be an exact definition of a good map, it's just way to subjective. It's like asking what makes a song good. Certain people consider certain genres "trash" and "noise" while others find it beautiful.
Of course you can say general stuff like a map should fit the song, for example in intensity, repetetiveness etc. Also some kind of structure or "idea" is a good basis.

So Pishifat's video said 2 things, a good map does not equal a fun map, and a good map should follow the music, something that UndeadCapulet said earlier. Nothing that actually defines what a good map is. There are mappers who believe Pishifat's maps are completely nonsensical and don't follow the music at all, and there are mappers that believe that their triangle based jump maps fit the music very well. What's the difference between those mappers? Are either of them wrong about their views? Can you give an objective answer?

blissfulyoshi wrote:

Can you put it into terms that are less subjective and more objective?

Is a beatmap good when it follows a very strict ds like a old school map vs a jump heavy modern map? There are a bunch of old mappers who think the modern style is terrible, and of course vice versa.

Even among modern maps, there are various styles that are loved by certain audiences, while thought of as random gimmicks by many others.

Think of beatmapping like it is making art. Works of art don't fall under anything objective to be what people would considered "good" works of art.

That being said, I think that a good map is one that has a concept that relates to the song regarding the patterns created or slider shapes/velocities/lengths/usage-per-beat. I think it also will manipulate the player's cursor in a way that best fits the rhythm of the song or the type of song. Lastly, the rhythms that you tap to don't have to stick with JUST the drums, JUST the vocals, etc., but I think you shouldn't be sporadic with what beats you map (overmapping, undermapping, etc.) and should instead map to what beats you think stand out absolutely.

Paraphrasing blissfulyoshi (the person who I am addressing this thought to), the way pishifat defines a good map differs from those who believe that mapping patterns best fits a song. I don't think it is right to clump different mapping styles together under one list of what makes a map good, in my opinion, because of how different the characteristics of differing mapping styles are.

I may not be someone with any ranked maps... BUT I'm confident in believing that a judgement like mine will produce some fun work, provided you have the inspiration and the motivation to follow through with yourself and finish mapping an entire song.

Tsuchimikado wrote:

Think of beatmapping like it is making art. Works of art don't fall under anything objective to be what people would considered "good" works of art.

That being said, I think that a good map is one that has a concept that relates to the song regarding the patterns created or slider shapes/velocities/lengths/usage-per-beat. I think it also will manipulate the player's cursor in a way that best fits the rhythm of the song or the type of song. Lastly, the rhythms that you tap to don't have to stick with JUST the drums, JUST the vocals, etc., but I think you shouldn't be sporadic with what beats you map (overmapping, undermapping, etc.) and should instead map to what beats you think stand out absolutely.

Paraphrasing blissfulyoshi (the person who I am addressing this thought to), the way pishifat defines a good map differs from those who believe that mapping patterns best fits a song. I don't think it is right to clump different mapping styles together under one list of what makes a map good, in my opinion, because of how different the characteristics of differing mapping styles are.

I may not be someone with any ranked maps... BUT I'm confident in believing that a judgement like mine will produce some fun work, provided you have the inspiration and the motivation to follow through with yourself and finish mapping an entire song.

It is great that you think of mapping as an art, but again you stated like everyone else how to follow music to map a song, not what makes a map good in objective terms. Maps can have plenty of styles and can be considered a work of art, but we still have a QAT that prunes out for quality. While they do check for metadata and what not, there are also plenty unranks over interpretation of music and various other similar things that are sometimes quite subjective. The mapper usually has a reason for why it was mapped that way. What makes those maps considered bad to the QAT though? What makes other maps better?

I'm haven't watched pishifat's video so I'm not sure if I am omitting or repeating anything he has already stated, but in objective terms there are some basic things **that go without saying** that constitutes a "good" map to someone on the Quality Assurance Team. This is not official, of course, as I am basing these points on how the QAT has "disqualified" some ranked maps due to Quality.[i][/i]

1. Your map must be timed with the correct BPM** and correct offset. There are people floating about the forums who would love to help you time a map correctly.
2. Your map must not violate any rules that AIMod checks for (Ctrl + Shift+ A in editor. or check under the File tab) with the exception of [single-difficulty maps] that are considered marathon-length or are up for Approval.
3. There must be a concept to your map of some kind (this is vague for a reason); a map lacking rhythm-based or gameplay-based creative direction will not pass. Also, a map with multiple creative directions that contrast too heavily with each other may not pass.

These are just three things that I could think off the top of my head, and are, like I said when I started, not official. Hopefully this incites more conversation to further focus a handful of things that characterize a good map in the eyes of the QAT?

Tsuchimikado wrote:

1. Your map must be timed with the correct BPM** and correct offset. There are people floating about the forums who would love to help you time a map correctly.
2. Your map must not violate any rules that AIMod checks for (Ctrl + Shift+ A in editor. or check under the File tab) with the exception of [single-difficulty maps] that are considered marathon-length or are up for Approval.

Just going to say that also those things are fairly objective, and not really debatable (yes you argue a few ms here and there for offset, but it is definitely not all based on option). They are required for a good map, but there are plenty of "bad" maps that fit into this criteria as well

Tsuchimikado wrote:

1. There must be a concept to your map of some kind (this is vague for a reason); a map lacking rhythm-based or gameplay-based creative direction will not pass. Also, a map with multiple creative directions that contrast too heavily with each other may not pass.

You are again stating vague things about styling your map consistently to fit the music. This has been an ongoing thing with almost every reply in the thread, and none of you have tried to objectify it. I brought up the QAT because with them, there are obviously some rules to rate 1 map over another and why certain subjective things were not considered "good" while others were.

high readability which is achieved by:
• avoiding overlaps that obscure the rhythm
• grouping objects that belong to the same musical pattern in a way they can be identified as such
• making repititions of sections/musical patterns recognisable by using similar or even identical visual arrangements
     • in the same sense making different sections/musical patterns visually distinguishable from each other
     • finding meaningful variations for musical patterns that repeat really often

rhythmical consistency which is achieved by:
• using a rhythm that focuses on a primary audible element (that is sufficiently consistent in rhythm) within each section to give the player a clear orientation; this ensures the feeling of "tapping to the beat"
• making repititions of sections/musical patterns recognisable by using very similar or even identical rhythms
     • finding meaningful variations for musical patterns that repeat really often by either
           • varying the rhythm but keeping the active taps vital to the element you are following
           • focusing on a different element that is clearly audible instead

expression of intensity which is achieved by:
• choosing appropriate SVs and spacing between sections that reflect the amount of instrumentalisation/volume/density used in the song
• manipulating the cursor movement in a way that gives emphasis to the objects representing the most important moments in the music


could all be wrong though as these theories of mine didnt get my maps anywhere yet

i could be wrong but im getting the impression that blissfulyoshi put me on the ignorelist...

Endaris wrote:

i could be wrong but im getting the impression that blissfulyoshi put me on the ignorelist...

I didn't meant to ignore you, but it is more you didn't answer the question. You provided a bunch of definitions to things ppl said in the thread about what you should pay attention to in a good map, not what defines a good map. A bad map can have all of those things.

Edit: Since a lot of people seem to be struggling at answering my question, let me give you a hint. One of the key counterarguments to most of your stuff is that even while following all of those guidelines while mapping what appeals to you, may not appeal to others. However, we still have "quality" standards.

There is no recipe you can just blindly follow step by step to get a guaranteed good map out of it if that is what you are looking for.

blissfulyoshi wrote:

I didn't meant to ignore you

Just making sure because you already seemingly replied to everyone else but me in this thread.

It is a bit dubious for me then what exactly you mean with "good".
Rankable "good"?
jonathanlfj "good"?
Graces of Heaven "good"?

If it's the former I have to say that - putting aside legacy maps from 2007/2008 - I can't think of a ranked map that doesn't apply what I wrote to a big extent, even the ones I personally dislike for whatever reason. Feel free to give examples that oppose this impression of mine if that's the point of your question.
If not I'm unsure what you're after.

Tshemmp wrote:

There is no recipe you can just blindly follow step by step to get a guaranteed good map out of it if that is what you are looking for.

You already can see from the responses I've given so far that following these various guidelines pointed out in the thread aren't going to make a guaranteed good map. I'm looking for something else entirely.

Endaris wrote:

Just making sure because you already seemingly replied to everyone else but me in this thread.

My apologies. That is my fault. I didn't fully understand your response, and with the amount of responses coming in at the time, I decided it'll be easier to move on. When I'm more motivated, I'll come back to that thread again.

Endaris wrote:

It is a bit dubious for me then what exactly you mean with "good".
Rankable "good"?
jonathanlfj "good"?
Graces of Heaven "good"?

If it's the former I have to say that - putting aside legacy maps from 2007/2008 - I can't think of a ranked map that doesn't apply what I wrote to a big extent, even the ones I personally dislike for whatever reason. Feel free to give examples that oppose this impression of mine if that's the point of your question.
If not I'm unsure what you're after.

Well at least you finally hit 1 key point I was looking for, no matter which map or mapper you're talking about they are questionably good, so can you phrase why? From there, can you phrase what defines a good map?

I purposely gave an open ended prompt because that is usually what some people use to justify a lot of actions in the ranking system and many other systems today. I wanted to see if any of you could see that and come up with the actual answer. (As an aside, this is a simple question that will come in some business or marketing 101 class in some shape or form)

I personally consider good maps to be expressing the song in a structured way while using patterns. A song has various sections inside, and also within an individual section, there are similar parts and some different ones existing. Similar section having a similar mapping concept / different section having a different mapping concept is the basic idea of assessing quality as what I've got for now. In-depth interpretation of the song (such as drum heavy vs vocal heavy) would be different by people, and that's when a preference of a mapper happens imo.

Patterns are mostly an outcome of a combination of mapping techniques. By combining different mapping techniques, a variation could be made from the original pattern, or even create a very different pattern. Telling the difference between 'variation' and 'inconsistency' is one of the common things that mappers seem to be struggling (or not even aware of) in my eyes. Another part which mappers are having trouble is actually applying a mapping technique to create a pattern.

But even if the map has a great aesthetic or good technical usage of pattern itself, if it has a less relation with the song (which is changing mapping concepts variously in the same section of the song), then it won't be good as a map. Only good as an individual pattern.

Playable ideas such as "fun" or "comfortable" are just way too subjective for me to define as good or bad.


and I've actually read the previous posts, and I think the main point of this thread was to be a discussion of 'what patterns are good?'.

blissfulyoshi wrote:

Is a beatmap good when it follows a very strict ds like a old school map vs a jump heavy modern map? There are a bunch of old mappers who think the modern style is terrible, and of course vice versa.

Even among modern maps, there are various styles that are loved by certain audiences, while thought of as random gimmicks by many others.

My view on this is that there is no such better pattern. While terms like "strict ds" or "heavy jump" pretty much falls under a mapping 'concept' rather than a mapping 'technique', still I can say they are at least different. Majority of maps these days are more likely to be the latter, but nothing more than that. They are just different.

Sonnyc wrote:

I personally consider good maps to be expressing the song in a structured way while using patterns. A song has various sections inside, and also within an individual section, there are similar parts and some different ones existing. Similar section having a similar mapping concept / different section having a different mapping concept is the basic idea of assessing quality as what I've got for now. In-depth interpretation of the song (such as drum heavy vs vocal heavy) would be different by people, and that's when a preference of a mapper happens imo.

Patterns are mostly an outcome of a combination of mapping techniques. By combining different mapping techniques, a variation could be made from the original pattern, or even create a very different pattern. Telling the difference between 'variation' and 'inconsistency' is one of the common things that mappers seem to be struggling (or not even aware of) in my eyes. Another part which mappers are having trouble is actually applying a mapping technique to create a pattern.

But even if the map has a great aesthetic or good technical usage of pattern itself, if it has a less relation with the song (which is changing mapping concepts variously in the same section of the song), then it won't be good as a map. Only good as an individual pattern.

Playable ideas such as "fun" or "comfortable" are just way too subjective for me to define as good or bad.


and I've actually read the previous posts, and I think the main point of this thread was to be a discussion of 'what patterns are good?'.

I never wanted it to be a discussion of what patterns are good. People just kept on reciting videos and other sources of logic to justify that as the answer to the question. As I stated before, if you mapped your map in a way that follows logical sense to yourself, but is found to be illogical by 99% of the osu! community, is your map a "good" map?

Sonnyc wrote:

blissfulyoshi wrote:

Is a beatmap good when it follows a very strict ds like a old school map vs a jump heavy modern map? There are a bunch of old mappers who think the modern style is terrible, and of course vice versa.

Even among modern maps, there are various styles that are loved by certain audiences, while thought of as random gimmicks by many others.

My view on this is that there is no such better pattern. While terms like "strict ds" or "heavy jump" pretty much falls under a mapping 'concept' rather than a mapping 'technique', still I can say they are at least different. Majority of maps these days are more likely to be the latter, but nothing more than that. They are just different.

I agree that these are just techniques, but people have vastly different opinions of these techniques. And these vastly different opinions will decide how your map is viewed by others, which plays a major role in modding, ranking, rating, and quite a few other aspects of mapping, regardless of how we like it or not.

blissfulyoshi wrote:

As I stated before, if you mapped your map in a way that follows logical sense to yourself, but is found to be illogical by 99% of the osu! community, is your map a "good" map?

If the community thinks that way, at least one thing is sure. "The mapper's intention wasn't properly delivered." Regardless of objective quality, that is not a good situation to happen imo unless the community members aren't really professional enough in beatmaps. So, my answer to that question would be a no.

Sonnyc wrote:

blissfulyoshi wrote:

As I stated before, if you mapped your map in a way that follows logical sense to yourself, but is found to be illogical by 99% of the osu! community, is your map a "good" map?

If the community thinks that way, at least one thing is sure. "The mapper's intention wasn't properly delivered." Regardless of objective quality, that is not a good situation to happen imo unless the community members aren't really professional enough in beatmaps. So, my answer to that question would be a no.

What if the remaining 1% thought it was the truest interpretation of the song and thought the map was an absolute masterpiece.